Democrats Dine

Last week Democracy gave a dinner party in Washington to honor Jouett Shouse, new executive committee chairman. Because National Committee Chairman John Jacob Raskob attended as prime guest-speaker, an incipient anti-Brown Derby revolt briefly threatened to wreck the good purposes of this gathering.

When potent southern Senators declined to attend, the meeting appeared likely to be distinguished more for its absentees than its guests. Said North Carolina's Senator Simmons: "Harmony ... requires the unhorsing of Raskob." South Carolina's Senator Blease added: "I've been with the Smith crowd as far as I care to go." The arch-Republican New York Herald Tribune gleefully played up Democratic difficulties, fanned the flames of schism.

Chief decliners were from Virginia where Bishop James Cannon Jr. had again been cannonading against the Smith-Raskob leadership. Senator Carter Glass found an engagement in Baltimore on the night of the dinner. Senator Claude Swanson had to go to New Bern, N. C., that evening. They both said they would have otherwise attended the Shouse dinner.

But efforts to belittle the dinner and to emphasize party dissensions served to rally many a Democrat to its defense. Senators who had declined asked permission to attend. Bishop Cannon denied he had attempted to scare anybody away. The sight of chuckling Republicans aroused party pride. Leaders again bent themselves grimly to the task of harmony.